


notes on jp saxe and julia michaels

by theauthorish



Category: ONEUS (Band)
Genre: Aged Up, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypse, Bittersweet, Discussing Things Like Adults, Earthquakes, Exes, Getting Back Together, M/M, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, inspired by if the world was ending by jp saxe, the angst is really bittersweet tbh, they're like mid-thirties
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theauthorish/pseuds/theauthorish
Summary: Seoho gives one last search of his apartment for anything he'll need— important papers, money, keys (just in case). He grabs some water, some snacks, and munches on the last of his leftovers. He decides last minute he might as well take his polaroid camera and the last of his film as well. Just in case. In the unlikely event the apocalypse is averted, well, maybe it’ll be nice to have some memories preserved.He almost doesn't text the others.He's not sure he wants to, because now that he thinks about it, the world is ending, and this is his last time with Geonhak. Sure, they're exes, but that didn't happen from lack of love. Just... an incompatibility of lives. PlansGeonhak is still the best love Seoho has ever known, enough that it makes him want to keep it to himself. All those goals and schemes that had gotten in the way before don't matter anymore. They could make up for lost time— if Geonhak wants to. (Seoho hopes he does.)In the end, though, Seoho knows he'd much prefer to face the end of the world with his family, too. With Youngjo and the others. So he calls Youngjo.
Relationships: Kim Geonhak | Leedo/Lee Seoho
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	1. if the world was ending, you'd come over right?

**Author's Note:**

> I was in a Mood a while back and kept looping if the world was ending by jp saxe and... i was thinking about seodo so. here it is. I'll try to update this once in a while, but I'll try to not have any cliffhangers since I don't know how often that'll be. I hope you like it!

After the earthquake happens, Seoho miraculously still has a signal. It's ridiculous, but now Hwanwoong, who'd constantly demanded why he paid such exorbitant amounts for his service, could suck it. Seoho knew and trusted his science; he'd known it was a good investment. 

This means he can contact people still. He tries the group chat first and is unsurprised that no one sees it. So he goes and gets packing, because his building’s old and he doesn't trust it to survive anything else. When he's finished, Dongju has responded, says he's fine. So has Youngjo, who says he's with Hwanwoong. No one knows where Keonhee is, but Dongju promises to pass by his place on the way to Youngjo's. Geonhak hasn't said a thing, and for some reason, Seoho decides to call him. It dawns on him that this would be the first time he’s voluntarily reached out to Geonhak—and by himself no less, with none of their other friends to serve as a buffer between them—since their breakup.

Well, if there were ever an appropriate time, the world ending seemed pretty close. 

Geonhak answers just before Seoho hangs up, sick of the ringing, empty and hollow, filling his stomach with worry.

"Hello?" He sounds breathless, as if he'd just been working out, and Seoho wants to laugh. Of course he would, even in the middle of the world ending. 

"Shut up," grunts Geonhak, because apparently Seoho said that bit out loud. There's a pause. "You're all right?" 

"Yep."

"The others?" 

"Mmhm. We don't know about Keonhee, but Dongju will see. You didn't see the texts?" 

There's some shuffling, and then Seoho can hear Geonhak drinking. It's a little scary how much like a normal day this feels. "Phone was dead and electricity's been out. Took a little bit to get the generator working, and a little longer to charge my phone. You called just as I got it switched on." 

"Ah." Seoho doesn't know what else to say. 

"Are you going to stay there?" 

"What?" 

"There," says Geonhak. "At your place. It's just a bit... Isn't that building ancient?" 

"It is," says Seoho.

That's why he packed. He doesn't know exactly where he'll go; he knows Youngjo would welcome him, but with Hwanwoong and Dongju already there, it would be a pretty tight squeeze. Tighter, if Keonhee joins them. Still, he's not sure what other options he has. Belatedly, he remembers he's on the phone, and Geonhak still seems to be waiting for him to expand. "I- uh. Probably won't stay. How's your place holding up?" 

"Fine." There's running water again, and then Geonhak swallows down some more; he’s such a weirdly loud drinker, honestly. "The street outside cracked, and one of the streetlights fell and smashed into one of the empty unit's walls, but no one's hurt, thankfully." 

Geonhak's lucky. He lives in a fancy new townhouse closer to the edge of the city, almost heading into the province, and that means he has more space to breathe and less chances of being murdered by a collapsing skyscraper, like some sort of monster Jenga tower made of steel and glass. Also, it was super solidly built, apparently, lots of anti-disaster measures. 

"Do you want to come here?" says Geonhak, startling Seoho from yet another unintentional reverie. "I know it's kind of far, and that things are still a little... awkward between us..." He clears his throat, hesitant, but earnest as always, voice pitched up a little as if he were talking to a cute child he doesn't want to scare away. "But if you can make it here, you're welcome to stay. The others too, if they want to. If you'd want them to." 

Seoho cracks a smile. "Shouldn't that be up to you? That's your house, Hak." 

"It would have been yours too, if things had worked out. You know that," murmurs Geonhak. There's no malice, just a warm reminder. It stings, but not as much as it used to. "Actually, I guess in some way, it never really stopped feeling like partly yours." Seoho waits, breath held, for the guilt to come in. For Geonhak to say something more, something he means too kindly, that makes Seoho wish he'd been… better. 

But it never comes. Seoho exhales quietly. "I can ask the others for you, if you want. Since I assume you'll be trying to conserve your battery." He gets an affirmative hum. "And I'd... appreciate it if I could. You know. Go stay with you." 

"Sure. See you."

Seoho gives one last search of his apartment for anything he'll need— important papers, money, keys (just in case). He grabs some water, some snacks, and munches on the last of his leftovers. He decides last minute he might as well take his polaroid camera and the last of his film as well. Just in case. In the unlikely event the apocalypse is averted, well, maybe it’ll be nice to have some memories preserved.

He almost doesn't text the others. 

He's not sure he wants to, because now that he thinks about it, the world is ending, and this is his last time with Geonhak. Sure, they're exes, but that didn't happen from lack of love. Just... an incompatibility of lives. Plans.

Geonhak is still the best love Seoho has ever known, enough that it makes him want to keep it to himself. All those goals and schemes that had gotten in the way before don't matter anymore. They could make up for lost time— if Geonhak wants to. (Seoho hopes he does.) 

In the end, though, Seoho knows he'd much prefer to face the end of the world with his family, too. With Youngjo and the others. So he calls Youngjo. 

Hwanwoong picks up. 

"Hak wants to know if you guys want to go over to his place to stay," says Seoho, before he can be selfish and not offer. 

"Hello to you too," replies Hwanwoong, dryly. "Yes, we're fine. Keonhee is with us." 

Seoho flushes. "Sorry? I'm glad though." 

"Yeah," says Hwanwoong, voice soft. "Us too. But... he's a little hurt. Cut himself on some broken glass. He's fine overall, but he's not going to be walking, probably, and the road outside Youngjo's is pretty much blocked off." He sounds apologetic. 

Seoho frowns. "Does he need someone to treat him or something because--" 

"He's fine, Seoho. One of Youngjo's neighbors is a doctor, he checked it."

"I'm a doctor too, y'know," huffs Seoho, to hide his worry. 

There's a click of tongue. "Not that kind of doctor, Mr. Scientist. Anyway, I guess you're heading to Geonhak's?" 

"Yeah." Seoho swallows nervously. Maybe that's a bad idea, though. Maybe— "You should. I think it'll be good for you both," says Hwanwoong, and Seoho can practically see the gentle, encouraging smile on his lips. "Let's check in again tomorrow, okay?" The line goes dead. 

Seoho sighs, tucks his phone into his pocket, and bids his home of the last year goodbye.

/////

He winds up stealing one of his neighbor’s bikes to get to Geonhak’s, his own car out of commission thanks to a severely fucked up parking lot floor and a light fixture smashed through the windshield.

He feels a little guilty, but he’s not sure he can really afford to be too morally upright right now. Geonhak’s place is too far to walk to realistically, and there’s little to no chance of him buying any sort of transportation in the wake of the disaster.

The trip there is uneventful, not counting three aftershocks, all of which Seoho stops for and waits out, crouched low to the ground for balance, bike dropped to free his hands as quickly as he could get off it. He feels a little bad for how roughed up the bike is getting under his charge, but between an inanimate object’s condition and his own body, it’s obvious what the right choice is.

Other than that, there isn’t much to say about his travel time. It’s summer, and the season clings to him insistently, slides down his forehead and his back in little rivulets, pools in his palms to make holding the handles more of a chore than it should be. He doesn’t encounter anyone, and he doesn’t witness anything else knocked loose in the shocks— though he doesn’t discount it as a possibility, careful to stick to open roads rather than anywhere with a ceiling when he can help it. 

All around him, the city is in varying stages of ruin, but for the most part the chaos has subsided; now, the only thing that lingers is dread and caution— and a silence Seoho would never have thought possible in the bustling city that was Seoul.

It’s almost eerie, now that he thinks about it. Streets that used to be perpetual oceans of people are empty, and somehow, that gives the illusion that they are wider than they used to be, that they are gaping holes in the fabric of reality, because how could _this_ be real? Never in Seoho’s wildest dreams would he have expected this, and he had some pretty wild dreams.

At least, he thinks, he’s out of his old building. He has no doubt the aftershocks could have very well taken that place down. It’s lucky, too, that the streets are wide. Even with abandoned cars littering the main road, the crosswalk is plenty spacious. Just because he hasn’t seen the shocks knock any more debris loose yet, doesn’t mean they still can’t, and he’s glad to have the open space, the distance away from the buildings that make it less likely he’ll be hit by any.

/////

An hour and a half of riding finds Seoho out of water, the sun just starting to sink down in the sky. Seoho grimaces as the last droplet hits his throat, squinting into his empty bottle like that will reveal a secret compartment with more, or magically make it refill itself out of fear for his disappointment.

Of course, that’s not possible by the laws of physics, so Seoho takes stock, instead, of where he is. He’s in a mostly residential part of town, so maybe he can knock on a few doors and ask for some water. Surely someone would have a heart enough to spare a little. Then again, with everything that’s happened, will anyone be brave enough to open their doors at all?

In the end, as Seoho glances at the doors and gates and weighs his options, he spots a little store tucked into the corner, one of those mom and pop mini groceries. The door is wedged open by an old wooden stool with a cardboard sign taped to it, declaring the goods inside for the taking as needed, courtesy of ‘auntie and uncle’.

They must have been wonderful people, Seoho thinks, carefully pushing his way inside, pushing his bike in along with him (he worries it’ll get stolen, and he _really_ can’t walk to Geonhak’s). They must have been so well-loved, must have loved so much in return, to be such generous souls even now. He hopes that wherever they are, wherever they’ve gone, they’re safe. Surely it’s the least they deserve.

The store’s shelves aren’t bare, exactly, but there are some clear gaps; Seoho notes the alcohol stock in particular seems to have been raided, but he’s not sure how much of that was practical, and how much was just an emotional response to current times. He shrugs his backpack from his shoulders and unzips it. He doesn’t have a whole lot of room, so he’ll need to be picky; might have to swap out the snacks he does have for more practical foods, ones that aren’t half composed of packaged air. Maybe he should have brought his gym bag after all.

His first order of business, though, is dealing with his thirst. There’s plenty of bottled sodas and juice, but he passes that shelf entirely. Those will only make the thirst worse, really… but maybe the sports drinks aren’t a bad idea. He snags one off the shelf and twists it open, drinks down more than half of it. Feeling much better, he sets all but one bag of chips that he’d packed on the shelf, and replaces them with canned goods and a bottle or two of water. His jug gets refilled, too, as he munches on his snack. The cheese powder will be a pain, afterwards, but Seoho’s fairly sure there will be some wet wipes on a shelf here if he looks.

Which reminds him, he should grab some first aid stuff. He’d forgotten that earlier, and considering Seoho had lost count of how many times he’d nearly hurt himself on the way here, it was probably a good idea to have some supplies to patch himself up. Especially because if he shows up injured, Geonhak will most certainly fuss over him more than he should.

Once he’s gotten everything sorted, Seoho takes one last look at the store and whispers a thanks, though there’s no one to hear it. It just feels right, that way.

He takes his bike and leaves.

/////

“You took a while,” is the first thing Geonhak says to him, looking distinctly unimpressed with the state Seoho is in.

“Shut up. The ride here wasn’t exactly easy,” sniffs Seoho, as Geonhak steps back to let him in, a hand held out for his bag. Seoho doesn’t give it to him out of spite.

“I imagine it wasn’t,” Geonhak replies, easily. “Still took a while. When did you get a bike, actually?”

“Today.”

Geonhak freezes where he’s gone to get a rag to wipe down the bike wheels and the dirt they’ve tracked in. “Seoho—”

“They aren’t going to be using it,” Seoho defends. “And they have a second one. I know they do.”

A sigh, followed by the faucet turning on, so at least he’s resumed moving again. Seoho sets his back down and scrubs at his sweaty face with his sleeve, resigning himself to the lecture that will come. “Yes, but you still shouldn’t have…”

“How else would I have gotten here, ‘Hak? Would you have wanted me to walk?” he challenges, raising his eyebrows, though his tone holds no edge.

“Well, no.”

“There you go, then.”

Geonhak reemerges from the kitchen and takes the bike from Seoho’s grip. “You can go shower if you want. We’ve still got water. Just try to conserve it.” When Seoho hesitates, he wrinkles his nose and adds, “Don’t worry, I don’t mind cleaning this off myself. You look like you could use a bath anyway.”

Seoho snorts and shoves gently at Geonhak’s shoulder. “Just say I stink and go.”

“Okay,” says Geonhak, cracking a smile as he shifts the bike to lean against the wall. “You stink. Go shower.”

That earns a full laugh out of Seoho. “Fine, maybe I will,” he huffs, stepping back reluctantly and picking up his bag.

Watching Geonhak kneel down, damp rag in hand, Seoho is struck again by just how beautiful Geonhak can be, even without trying, making something as simple as cleaning look like a work of art unfolding. He isn’t even dressed up; just wearing an old pair of ripped jeans (smudged with dirt and grease, probably from the work earlier with the generator) and a ratty tee. Even then, there’s just something about the line of his arms, the breadth of his shoulders… the little crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, marks of a generous smiler. His hands are so tender, so meticulous as he cleans, as they are with everything. As they always have been.

When Geonhak realizes Seoho hasn’t yet moved, he doesn’t bother turning to look, but he does click his tongue. “Seoho,” he says, voice low. “I’m not going anywhere if you take your eyes off me for fifteen minutes. I live here. The bike isn’t going to vanish either. Go get clean.”

Seoho smiles, sheepish. “I got distracted,” he admits.

“I know,” Geonhak replies, rolling his eyes. “I know what your looks feel like. Stop ogling and get clean, dumbass.”

“Who said I was ogling? Maybe I was just thinking.”

Geonhak hums, but he clearly doesn’t believe Seoho. “Sure,” he lies. He makes a shooing motion. “Now go.”

Seoho pouts, but he does listen this time. He’s only been here once before, but it isn’t that big a place; there are only three doors, and he remembers the one at the end of the hall is the closet. The first door is the bedroom, and Seoho takes one quick glance at its neatly made bed, and sparsely decorated walls before tugging it shut once more. Something about it feels too… he doesn’t even know what to name the feeling in his chest, but it’s not really pleasant. It’s too heavy, makes his ribs feel like they’re shrinking and caving in on his lungs.

He’ll likely see it later, unless he sleeps on the couch— and he wouldn’t mind doing that, really, but knowing Geonhak, he won’t be. For now though, he has no real reason to look, so he doesn’t. 

He opens the correct door and disappears inside.

/////

Seoho has always taken quick showers, so within ten minutes (give or take; Seoho didn’t exactly run a timer), he’s out, scrubbing at his hair with the towel Geonhak had left for him on the toilet seat.

Geonhak’s left the bike by the entryway, sparkly clean, but Geonhak himself is nowhere in sight.

Seoho isn’t paranoid enough to fret about it; he knows Geonhak can take care of himself, and anyway, Geonhak wouldn’t ditch him for long. Still, he wonders what he should do. 

He doesn’t want to snoop. That would be rude. He’d unpack, but he isn’t sure where to put his things… ah. He does have the food and supplies. He could certainly get those out of the way. 

The kitchen isn’t too difficult to navigate, he finds. It’s easy enough to find space in the pantry for the canned goods he’s brought, and though it’s a tight squeeze, he manages to fit the water bottles in the fridge too.

Geonhak comes in just as Seoho is weighing the pros and cons of cooking something.

“We have food,” he says. “Set the table?”

Seoho’s eyebrows rise at the sight of a platter in Geonhak’s hands, full of some kind of casserole. “Where’d you get that?”

“Table, Seoho,” Geonhak just repeats.

“Yeah, yeah.” Seoho sighs, and fishes out the cutlery and plates, carrying them over to the table and arranging them neatly while Geonhak peels back the plastic wrap clinging to the dish and brings it to the kitchen to toss. It smells heavenly, and Seoho’s sorely tempted to faceplant in it, really, except that would be dumb, and he’d much rather eat it than use it as a facial, so he refrains. “There. Now— question, Geonhak,” he says, mimicking Geonhak’s tone. 

Geonhak rolls his eyes, a smile flickering at the corners of his mouth. “A neighbor. She always makes too much food; she’s used to her kids being around, but they recently moved out. I think she decided to adopt me instead,” he laughs. “I told her she shouldn’t have, actually, because of the whole world ending thing, but she insisted. I made her promise this would be the last one, though.”

“Oh,” says Seoho. He feels it again, that thing in his chest, though it’s more a tickle this time around than anything painful. “I’m glad someone’s taking care of you,” he admits, finally, when Geonhak turns to him expectantly, because if there’s anything Geonhak knows, it’s how to read people, especially Seoho. He knows, just by the uptick of Seoho’s voice in that single syllable, that Seoho has something to say. “I’m glad,” Seoho reiterates, smiling even if it doesn’t sit quite right on his lips. “I know you forget to do it yourself, sometimes.”

In another world, Seoho would have done it.

But in this one, he’d had ambitions too big for the simple life Geonhak had always craved; in this one, he’d had no patience and Geonhak had had too much; in this one… in this one, Seoho had chosen to leave, to chase things he wasn’t sure he could have grasped, even if the universe hadn’t decided to fuck Earth over.

At least, Seoho thinks to himself, at least now he’s getting a second chance at it.

Geonhak’s voice is low, a pleasant rumble when he replies, “I think you’d like her. Maybe you can meet her sometime.”

“We could make her something,” Seoho offers. “Probably nothing complicated, since neither of us are master chefs or anything, but still.” Geonhak had always talked about cooking together, when they dated. They’d always said they would, but never got around to it. Seoho had always been so busy, so tired, and even if they slept over at each others’ places often, they hadn’t lived together. It was easier for whoever had time to cook, or to just order takeout from that place down the street or around the corner.

Funny isn’t it, that after all this time, after a year and some change, Seoho still remembers something so inane. But he does. 

Clearly, Geonhak does too, and doesn’t expect Seoho to, because he pauses where he’s cutting them each a serving of the casserole. “That would be nice,” he murmurs, finally. “What would we make?”

Seoho shrugs. “Whatever we have the ingredients for, I guess.”

“Well, obviously.” Geonhak takes a seat, and Seoho follows suit, picking up his fork. “Let’s just say we have anything you’d need. What would you cook, if you could cook anything?” He asks, cutting into his own food.

Seoho hums, considering that. He hums again. What would he cook with Geonhak? All he can think of is ramyeon, but that hardly counted as cooking, and they’d done it all the time back in college, during their study sessions (dates, they were dates— even if they hadn’t called them that yet)… But what else could he say? Seoho isn’t much of a cook, he usually just does whatever he can throw together. And if they were going to cook for Geonhak’s neighbor, ramyeon was hardly an appropriate thank you for something as delicious as… come to think about it, what were they eating, exactly, anyway?

A cleared throat from across the table snaps Seoho back to attention, and he sees Geonhak’s eyes sparkling at him, the corners crinkled. Seoho swats at the hand Geonhak’s carelessly left lying in his reach. “Hey! Stop laughing! Why are you laughing?”

“Why is it taking you so long?” Geonhak snickers in response. “It’s not that deep, Seoho.”

“Well, a muscle brute like you wouldn’t understand, but some of us like to exercise our brain cells once in a while—”

“Yah, what did you say?” Geonhak demands, snatching up Seoho by the wrist and tugging him closer, presumably to bully him into submission, while Seoho giggles uncontrollably, pretending to struggle against Geonhak’s grip. “Come here.” Geonhak gives him another yank. “Come _here_ , Seoho.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry! I’m sorry ‘Hak! Let me eat, my food’s getting— ah, _sh—_ ” 

Seoho barely manages to catch his fork before it falls off the table, grimacing at the sauce that gets smeared over his fingers. Geonhak blinks, wide-eyed, then settles back into his chair, grin slightly smug. “You brought that on yourself,” he says.

“You’re so violent, as always,” Seoho mutters, accepting the napkin Geonhak hands him.

“And you’re annoying. What’s new?”

Seoho just laughs breathlessly. What _is_ new? Everything, really: the world is predicted to end within the next few months, they’ve been broken up a year and barely spoken since then, and this place of Geonhak’s, he’d only moved into after they parted ways.

And yet— and yet, nothing has changed at all, really. They’re still Seoho and Geonhak. Still the same they’ve always been. It feels like no time has passed, like they never really said goodbye. Just ‘see you later’.

/////

They do the dishes together by unspoken agreement. When they finish eating and Geonhak picks up their plates and brings them to wash, it’s as natural as breathing for Seoho to cover up their leftovers and tuck them away in the fridge, then bring the glasses over to the sink as well.

Geonhak washes, Seoho dries. It’s always been this way. Geonhak puts things away too carelessly for Seoho, who hates the noise when the plates scrape against each other, who fears one day Geonhak will break something (like Seoho’s teeth, from when he grates them at the sound). Seoho never scrubs right, according to Geonhak— he misses spots, once in a while, not often enough for it to be a problem, but Geonhak hates that more than anything.

“We should probably sleep, soon,” says Geonhak, voice dropped to a whisper like he’s trying not to spook Seoho.

Seoho knows that once upon a time, he might have spooked anyway; intimacy has always been his greatest wish, and simultaneously his greatest fear. He never knew if he could live up to deserving it.

Now, he knows he might not, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try.

And anyway, love isn’t earned. It’s given freely.

Geonhak had taught him that.

“I am pretty tired,” Seoho agrees.

Geonhak hesitates, and Seoho knows— just knows— what he’ll say. “Share the bed?”

Seoho focuses on the plate Geonhak’s handed him, wiping it down thoroughly, so he can feign nonchalance. “I don’t mind.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t.”

“Oh.”

Seoho puts the plate away and elbows Geonhak gently. “Geonhak,” he says.

Geonhak stares at him. “What?”

“Dish? Something?” Seoho flexes his fingers in a little hand-it-over motion.

“Oh.” Geonhak ducks his head and turns away, a flush crawling up his cheeks. “Right.” He hands off the plate in his hands, certainly scrubbed far more than it really deserved to be.

Seoho laughs lightly, ignoring the nervousness swirling in his stomach like a cocktail he’d drunk without any food to soften its effects. “Are you that surprised?” he asks, aiming for teasing and falling just short of it. “I can take the sofa, too, if you’d rather.”

“No, I— you can—” Geonhak blows out a deep breath and covers his eyes with his hand, heedless of the water dripping off it. He chuckles. “Why am I so nervous? It’s just a bit… you really don’t mind?”

Seoho had hoped he wouldn’t have to address this for a while longer; the past, that is. He’d hoped to pretend nothing had come between them at all. He had hoped, for a little while, that he could just bask in what blessing he’d been granted without having to face the pain he’d felt— the pain he’d caused.

But he supposes it’s the least he owed the universe. It's most _definitely_ the least he owes Geonhak.

“I don’t,” Seoho says, putting the plate away and twisting his body to fully face Geonhak. He needs to know how much Seoho means all of what he’s about to say. “Geonhak, I— I never left you because I was mad at you, you know that, right?”

“I hurt you,” Geonhak mumbles, sadly. “I said awful things—”

“ _‘Hak._ ” Seoho cuts in, pinching at Geonhak’s arm to shut him up. Geonhak winces, but doesn’t pull away, ever a champ. “Let me speak. I was hurt, but I forgave you almost right away.”

“Then why…”

“Why…” Seoho picks up where Geonhak left off, prompting. When Geonhak doesn’t continue, he fills in the blanks himself. “Why didn’t I come back? Why didn’t I reach out much, even after?”

Geonhak nods.

“I didn’t come back because…” Seoho sighs. “You would have waited for me forever, ‘Hak. That wasn’t fair to you, or to me.” He takes Geonhak’s hand in his and winds their fingers together. Idly, he admires how right it still felt, the way they fit. “I wanted so many things,” Seoho says. “I wanted to change the world, not just once, but a million times over. I wanted to discover things. To invent things. I would’ve given everything for it— I did, until recently. You didn’t deserve to be kept waiting. You didn’t deserve to lose your mind with worry when you saw me run myself ragged for all these flimsy ideas.” Seoho pauses, strokes his thumb back and forth over Geonhak’s calloused skin as he gathers his thoughts. “And how could I have forced myself through all that, knowing what it was doing to you? I couldn’t. I would have hesitated. I would have stepped back. And if I was going to achieve the things I’d dreamed about my whole life, I couldn’t afford that.”

“Besides,” Seoho adds, in a smaller voice, “All you’d ever wanted was a quiet life. I couldn’t take that from you.”

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Geonhak protests.

“I know you wouldn’t have. But you should have.” Seoho lets go of Geonhak and nudges him towards the sink, picking up the towel again. “So I did.”

Geonhak stays frozen, for a moment, but as he almost always does, he gives in to Seoho with no more than a tiny shrug to himself and a scrunch of his nose. He switches on the faucet again, scrubbing clean the forks and knives they’d used. “Actually, I guess there’s no point in being upset at you for that, a year later.”

“You can be. Upset, that is,” Seoho tells him, because it’s true. “You’re allowed to be. It was unfair of me to make that decision on my own, whether it was right or not.” He’d accepted that a long time ago, but he didn’t regret the choice he’d made. Just that he’d made it alone.

“I _can_ be, yeah,” says Geonhak. “But I’m not. It’s very like you to make a decision like that. To be so selfishly selfless.”

“That’s an oxymoron.”

“Shut up.” Geonhak hands him the cutlery to wipe off, and then dries off his hands. “Do you always have to be a pest?” he complains, with no malice.

Seoho shoots him a small grin. “You know the answer to that already.”

“So anyway. What about the second bit?” Geonhak’s gaze flicks over to Seoho’s again. He leans back against the counter. “Why the near radio silence?”

“Hm…” Seoho frowns, trying to find the words, returning the silverware to its place in the drawer to fill the space in between. Geonhak is watching him carefully, but not in a way that feels heavy, demanding. Seoho hadn’t been lying, earlier: Geonhak would wait for him forever, if Seoho let him. He knows this. “I was scared,” he breathes, finally. “Scared I’d regret the things I’d done. Scared I’d want you back more than I wanted my ambitions.”

Geonhak mulls that over, catching his lip between his teeth for a moment. Seoho forces his eyes away from it, looks instead at the drawer handle still clutched in his hand, though he’s already finished his task. “Would that have been such a bad thing?” Geonhak asks.

“In some ways.” It’s a non-answer, Seoho knows. An avoidance. Geonhak doesn’t call him out for it, though, and eventually, he explains, “If I did want you more… I would have wound up sacrificing all the things I’d done until then, you know? It wasn’t a game, what I was doing. I couldn't just hit pause and save it for later. I didn’t want to make hurting you— and me, because ‘Hak, it hurt me too, I swear—”

“—I know, Seoho—”

“I didn’t want all that to be in vain.”

With a sigh, Geonhak crosses the short distance between them and pulls Seoho away from the drawer, turning him gently, so that they’re facing each other. Seoho isn’t ready to look him in the eyes, and thankfully, Geonhak doesn’t make him. “You’re so ridiculous, sometimes,” he snorts, soft. “As if there was anything you could do to me I wouldn’t forgive.”

“Forgive?”

Geonhak’s probably rolling his eyes sky-high, right now. Seoho refuses to look, even now, but he feels it in his soul. “Yeah. I know you, remember? I know you’re not telling me that you were scared I’d be mad, too. Or that I’d hate you.” Seoho does glance up then, just in time to catch Geonhak wrinkling his nose. “Even when I think I’ve made it pretty clear from the start I didn’t need as much space as you were giving me.”

“You should have. We didn’t… it wasn’t a pretty split, at first. And then it was just sad.”

Geonhak flicks his forehead.

Seoho yelps and recoils, raising a hand to the stinging spot. “What was that for!?”

“Being stupid.” Geonhak moves to repeat it, so Seoho snatches at his wrists and grips them tight so he can’t inflict any more pain. Geonhak is gentle, mostly, but when he does use force… “Just because you’re older,” says Geonhak, cocking his head slightly like he does when he’s trying to get a point across, or when he’s irritated (or both). “Doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do. ‘Should have’ this, ‘should have’ that. I’m not blaming you, and have no plans to, so stop trying to make me.”

Seoho sighs for the umpteenth time that night. “You’re too nice for your own good, ‘Hak.”

“And you think far less of yourself than you should,” retorts Geonhak. “Now, if you’re done with that, let’s head to bed, hm?”

/////

Seoho’s not sure what he expected out of Geonhak’s room. Probably exactly what he’s seeing, really— unadorned walls, a simple, neatly made bed; a desk with a laptop on it along with a heavy set of headphones, the really expensive professional kind. The chair has a hoodie slung over its back, and under the bed, there’s a whole row of dumbbells and barbells. Other than that, there’s a single dresser by one wall, and a sliding door closet built into another. It's not messy, but it isn’t so clean as to be impersonal. There’s nothing about it that isn’t Geonhak in every way, nothing about it that feels like he isn’t welcome, because with Geonhak—

With Geonhak, Seoho has always been welcome.

What was he so afraid of, earlier?

Why isn’t he scared of it anymore?

He steps inside, Geonhak’s hand at the small of his back nudging him forward, and he thinks, maybe that’s it. Geonhak behind him, supporting him. It’s one thing to know how deeply Geonhak loves him, even beyond their romance. It’s another thing to feel it, to feel forgiveness in every brush of his fingers against Seoho’s skin through his shirt.

He takes another look around, drinking it all in. It’s so distinctly Geonhak, to not have decorations, because he finds those wasteful (of space, and time, and money). Instead, he lets the things he uses speak for him. Still. It is a little plain. Seoho thinks he could never have let this slide, if he’d lived here after all.

He’d at least have convinced Geonhak to hang up a few pictures. Or to paint an accent wall, maybe. Maybe he still could. There’s no fleeing the literal implosion of the planet they live on, so there’s really very little to do to survive other than wait and take care of themselves. Maybe he could convince Geonhak to—

Seoho bites down a hysterical laugh. 

Earlier, he’d wanted nothing more than to delay looking at this, at the life Geonhak had built without Seoho. And now, he’s thinking about how it might have been, if he had chosen Geonhak over himself. Now, less than a minute in this room has him thinking about their what-if, about how he could make this space not just Geonhak’s, but _theirs_.

“I found some of your stuff when I moved,” Geonhak blurts out, apropos to nothing. He turns away from Seoho and goes digging through his dresser for clothes, probably to hide his shyness. “They’re in a bin at the back of the closet. It’s got a Superman sticker on it, from one of the kids at the preschool.”

Before Seoho can voice his shock— he doesn’t remember leaving anything behind, and why had Geonhak kept it all this time?— Geonhak’s out the door to take a shower. 

The bin in question is one of those neat little plastic ones, the ones with the snap-on lids. The Superman sticker is the logo, and Seoho wonders if it was on purpose, that it happens to be an ‘S’, as if for ‘Seoho’, or if it was just a coincidence that that’s the sticker Geonhak had been given. Seoho runs his fingers over it and wonders about it.

He could see it both ways, really. He could imagine Geonhak kneeling down by a child playing at arts and crafts, could practically hear the way his voice would flow, smooth and softened at the edges, as he asked about what the child was making. He would smile indulgently at the way the child babbled, or prompt them sweetly if they were shy. He’d act like he was just seeing the sheet of stickers, then, and ask if he could have one, and he’d point at the Superman logo.

It was just as likely, though, that some overexcited kid had brandished the sticker at Geonhak like a weapon, had demanded he wear it, with no room for contradiction. Maybe he stuck it on Geonhak’s shirt, like a nametag, or at the center of his chest like Geonhak himself was a hero— and he really was, in many ways; he certainly had the golden heart of one. Or maybe he’d stuck it on Geonhak’s cheek, so that Geonhak could feel it every time he smiled, when it crinkled up with his skin.

Then again, that wasn’t the point of this. Seoho pulls the bin into his lap and pops it open.

“Oh,” he murmurs, when he sees its contents. So that’s where these went, he thinks, looking at his old jerseys from college. He’d thought he’d lost these years ago; they must have gotten mixed with Geonhak’s things instead. Lord knows Seoho and Geonhak had typically joined the same clubs, the same teams, at least through high school and the first two years of college.

On the other side, there’s a small stack of sweaters, a pair of gloves, a cap. Those, Seoho had left on purpose; they’d been Geonhak’s first— actually, had always been his. Seoho had just liked to steal them, to wear them when he had to face a day he knew he wouldn’t enjoy. They’d been comforting, when Geonhak couldn’t be there in person to cheer him on. It helped that Geonhak liked his clothes extra soft, too.

Plus, if Seoho’s honest, back then, there was also the small ulterior motive of knowing Geonhak liked seeing Seoho in his clothes, and Seoho, well, he’d liked to see Geonhak riled up.

Seoho wonders if they’ll all still fit him. They probably will, Seoho always makes time to keep his health up and work out, so his weight’s much the same as it used to be. 

Maybe he’ll wear one tomorrow.

In the meantime, Seoho figures he can use this bin to keep the clothes he brought over. All he has to do is rearrange things a little to get them to fit.

Seoho has learned a lot of things in pursuit of his ambitions. He’s learned the true value of grit. He’s learned how to successfully pull an all-nighter and come out with results that didn’t sound like a two year-old hyped up on drugs wrote them. He’s learned about research and techniques from some of the top scientists in his field.

He’s also learned, from all the field research trips he’s taken, that rolling clothes when packing often meant he could squeeze in more than expected.

As it is, the bin has just enough space for everything that’s in it. If he takes them all out and rolls them… it should fit in everything, including the clothes he’s brought. There is a slight caveat in that rolling them will leave them wrinkled, but that doesn’t matter all too much in the scheme of things. After all, how put together do you really need to look to survive an apocalypse?

Carefully, almost reverently, Seoho pulls out the items one by one. Holding them feels, somehow, like holding a fragment of himself. In a way, Seoho supposes he is; these are relics of _before_ , of the version of himself he’d left behind with Geonhak, but could never really erase, though he’d certainly tried.

There go the old jerseys, the ones Seoho had spent too many days sweating in, Geonhak alongside him. There go the gloves, with the mismatched thread on one finger where he’d ripped it, and Geonhak had mended it for him. There goes the ugly tourist cap Geonhak had bought him that one summer they spent on Jeju Island. There go the sweaters— one, two, three, four (had he really stolen that many?)— just a fraction too broad in the shoulders, too loose and stretched out in the arms. There’s… 

Something else.

Seoho’s brow furrows. “What’s this?” he mutters to himself.

It’s a small drawstring pouch, knotted twice. The cotton of the bag looks worn out, as if it’s known more use than it really should have. Seoho even spots a tiny hole, though it isn’t big enough to peek through.

Seoho knows it isn’t his. He didn’t keep things in pouches like this if he could help it, and certainly not without labeling it somewhere.

Geonhak comes in then, hair dripping all over the floor and towel slung around his neck. His face is red, likely from the water temperature he always turns up too high, and he’s scratching absently at a little zit on his chin.

“You shouldn’t do that.” He really shouldn’t. It’ll only make it worse.

For a moment, Geonhak stills, nose wrinkling, confused. A moment later, he drops his hand, almost guiltily. “Right,” he mumbles.

“You’d think you’d remember after how much I used to rag on you about it,” Seoho teases.

“Shut up. What are you…” 

Why is Geonhak just staring? Why is he blushing? Had Seoho found the wrong bin? No, no— Geonhak had definitely said there was a Superman sticker, and it’s right there on the lid. Seoho even checks, just to be sure. 

When it seems like, even half a minute later, Geonhak has no plans of finishing his sentence, Seoho prods, “What am I… what? You said my things were here. This is what you meant, right?”

Geonhak nods wordlessly.

“So what’s the problem?”

“I— that pouch isn’t—” Geonhak stammers. He won’t look at Seoho, suddenly, and it would be funny, seeing him all flustered, if Seoho wasn’t at an absolute loss as to why he was so shy. “Did you look?” Geonhak finally settles on.

“No.” He glances curiously at the pouch, then turns his eyes to Geonhak once more. “Should I have?”

“I… I’d rather you didn’t,” Geonhak admits, though he doesn’t move to take it from Seoho, not even when he holds it out to him. “But you can, if you want. It’s yours.”

Seoho blinks. “Mine?”

“Well…” Geonhak finally gets his feet unstuck from the doorway, crossing the room to sit beside Seoho on the floor. “Not exactly. I didn’t get a chance to give it to you. I don’t know if you’d want it now, though.” He shrugs. “I forgot I’d kept it there, actually.”

Seoho hums, feels, briefly, at the contents of the pouch. It feels a little cube-ish, a little… 

He holds it out to Geonhak, inexplicably nervous, suddenly, that he might guess what it is, and there would be no going back from that. “Here. You can show me when you’re ready,” he says, smiling as brightly as he can to mask his apprehension.

Geonhak’s brow furrows, but he accepts it easily enough. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” Seoho isn’t sure he’s ready— isn’t sure he’ll _ever_ be ready to know what it is. But still, he adds, “Besides, I can always ask, right? If I change my mind?”

“Yeah.” Geonhak says it so firmly despite himself that it makes Seoho pause.

“Even if you don’t want me to?”

“Actually, it’s not that I don’t want to, I just feel a bit…” Geonhak shakes his head, as if to clear it of something, though what that might be, Seoho doesn’t know. 

There are going to be a lot of things, like that, he realizes. A lot of things Seoho won’t know about Geonhak, even if there are far more things that he _does_ know. A lot can happen in a year. A lot can change. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d let you.”

“Huh.” Seoho turns away, away from Geonhak’s eyes— too earnest, too familiar (and too unfamiliar, all at once). He takes one of the jerseys and starts his task of rolling it up. Geonhak takes that as a sign the conversation is over, evidently. He stands and goes to tuck away the pouch and its mysterious contents.

Seoho only sees this from the corner of his eye, but he marvels, again, at how graceful Geonhak still is. He’s always moved with so much fluidity, so much languidness. It’s no different now, the way he rises to his feet in one smooth movement, the way he pivots on one heel and takes the few steps necessary to reach the dresser, like everything is one extended action, instead of a million tiny, separate ones.

Seoho has always envied that.

He reaches for the next jersey and rolls that up too.

/////

The bed is pretty big, spacious enough that they shouldn’t have to sleep pressed up against each other.

But that’s what they do.

Geonhak settles into bed first, crawling under the blankets and waiting patiently for Seoho to finish his pre-bedtime routine of dithering about and checking random things in the room. He says nothing, just watches as Seoho fiddles with his bin of things, twisting it this way and that until he feels it sufficiently aligns with the lines in the wooden floor. He just watches as Seoho stands and flicks the lock of the bedroom door, then tests the knob a few times. He just watches as Seoho nudges his exercise gear a bit deeper under the bed so they won’t be tripped over.

Finally satisfied, Seoho switches off the light. 

When he climbs in next to Geonhak, he feels the bed shift. Geonhak moves slow enough and exaggerated enough that Seoho can tell what he’s doing, and if he wants to, he can tell Geonhak to fuck right off— or at the very least, to stay on his side of the bed.

Seoho keeps silent, and sighs gently when Geonhak’s arm wraps around his waist, pulling him closer.

“That’s gotta be awkward, ‘Hak,” Seoho mumbles, when a minute passes and Geonhak’s arm remains their only point of contact. “You’ll get a cramp or something. You can hug me properly. I won’t break.”

“I know you won’t,” says Geonhak, though it still takes another long moment before he obeys, shuffling closer with a rustle of the sheets so that his front curves sweetly against Seoho’s spine, wonderfully warm.

“Isn’t this better?” Seoho snuggles back against him. He has to admit: this is one of the things he’d missed getting from Geonhak most. The uncomplicated affection behind closed doors, the security of knowing someone who loved him, who he loved in return, was holding him, protecting him.

Geonhak’s breath tickles Seoho’s neck when he answers, “Yeah, actually. Much.” His voice is low, lower even than usual, which means he’s more tired than he’s let on, to already be falling asleep. Seoho can feel it rumble in Geonhak’s chest.

Seoho hums his acknowledgement, laces their fingers together without thinking. “Night, Geonhak.”


	2. you'd come over and you'd stay the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took longer than expected, and tbh idk when the next chapter will be around, but hopefully, you don't mind waiting! thanks for being so patient!

Seoho wakes to find Geonhak’s already up. The bed is empty, but not yet cold, so it can’t have been too much earlier. He can smell coffee, can hear the whirr of the ancient coffeemaker Geonhak apparently  _ still _ hasn’t thrown away, too. 

Seoho pushes himself up with difficulty. He can feel his body ache from the exertion of yesterday’s biking, and he groans softly to himself. 

He hates aching. He’d rather something outright sting than ache.

When he eventually stumbles his way to the kitchen, he finds Geonhak standing by the counter, sipping at a mug that probably doesn’t have any coffee at all. “Hot chocolate?” he asks.

“Milk,” says Geonhak, jerking a thumb at the coffeemaker, beside which is everything Seoho needs to mix the coffee the way he likes— a mug, a handful of sugar packets, and a spoon to mix it all. 

“Why’d you keep the coffeemaker if you don’t even use it?”

Geonhak shrugs. “For guests. I do have people over, sometimes, and enough of them do like coffee.” He drinks down the rest of his milk, wipes off his mouth with one hand, and sets the mug in the sink. “Actually, it would have been a hassle to get rid of it after I’d set it up.”

“Why didn’t you just get rid of it before? You know, when—”

Geonhak turns on the faucet to wash off the cup and his hands, and it isn’t loud at all, not even aggressive (Geonhak’s hands were never rough; not even when provoked, no matter how much he liked to beat his chest and bare his teeth).

Somehow, the sound of the running water makes Seoho fall silent anyway, makes him feel as cut off as if Geonhak had physically wrestled him into a chokehold, or slapped a hand over his mouth.

Taboo, somehow. That topic… that’ll open up a line of discussion Seoho isn’t ready for, yet. He feels it.

He turns his attention to the coffee pot, checks that it’s absolutely done dripping before pulling the pot out to pour himself some. “Did you sleep well?” he asks, to fill the space left behind.

He gets a hum of affirmation, and no acknowledgement of his abrupt switch of tacks. Seoho is grateful for that. “I’ve always slept best with you there. Even back in college,” Geonhak tells him.

Seoho remembers this. Geonhak  _ had _ , it was true; there’d been many nights when Geonhak couldn’t sleep, when his only recourse had been to call Seoho. The bedsprings of his shitty mattress would creak with each toss and turn, but the longer the call went on, the more Seoho talked, the less frequent they’d become— until Geonhak’s breathing was slow and even, his voice drowsy and heavy in his throat as he murmured a goodnight. Seoho always hung up first.

When they were sleeping over, though, regardless of whose place it was… Geonhak never seemed to have any trouble giving into his tiredness. Holding Seoho in his arms, no matter how cramped or awkward their position, always seemed to knock Geonhak out within minutes. (He’d liked to claim, teasingly, that it was because Seoho was boring, and therefore anti-insomnia, but Seoho would only snigger; he knew it was a lie. They both did.)

Come to think of it, that was probably  _ why _ they spent so many nights at each others’ places, together rather than separate.

Geonhak eyes him carefully for a moment, gauging… something. Seoho doesn’t know what— likely never will. “Did you?”

Seoho nods. He’s stirring his coffee needlessly, now, every grain of sugar long dissolved in it. His spoon clinks against the ceramic, but Seoho likes the sound of it. It’s almost melodic, if he thinks about it. He decides to try and see if he can play a simple tune like this.

After a minute of it not really working, Geonhak lets out a long, exasperated breath and plucks the spoon from Seoho’s hand. He pulls it out of the coffee fast enough a few flecks of brown stain the collar of Seoho’s shirt, and Seoho gapes at him, offended.

“Enough, already,” Geonhak says, completely unfazed. “I made you the coffee to drink, not to play with.” He drops the spoon into the sink, and doesn’t even flinch at the clatter it makes. Seoho does, though. “Drink it before it gets cold. Otherwise you’ll just pour it down the drain and waste it, and that’s the worst possible thing to do right now.”

Seoho glares, but he takes a sip from the coffee anyway. Geonhak is right, of course. “Does the TV work?” he asks, as the warmth of his drink seeps through his veins.

Geonhak frowns in thought, nose wrinkling. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “Didn’t bother to check. Why?”

“The news. What else? You know I don’t really watch anything else.” He adds, “Besides, we should really be watching out for what’ll happen with the planet and our literal lives in the balance, you know?”

“That’s true.” Geonhak leaves the kitchen to fiddle with the television, while Seoho drinks his coffee and thinks about how domestic this has all felt. How easy it’s been, slipping into Geonhak’s home and belonging there.

Even now, watching Geonhak carefully inspect each wire for damage and connecting them to the proper outlets, Seoho feels a strange sense of almost-deja-vu. Like he’s seen this everyday until now, like this— them living together, them  _ being _ together— has never been put on pause.

Geonhak finishes his survey of the wires and picks up the remote to switch the TV on. All that’s on is static. 

“Guess that was too much to hope for, huh?” Seoho mutters, and the coffee, he finds, is more bitter than he likes. How he failed to notice until now, he doesn’t know, but he’s too lazy to go take out the sugar he’s already tucked away.

So he makes do.

“Might have been… just a little bit too much, yeah,” Geonhak agrees quietly, switching it off. He stands, and Seoho is staring again, because, well, it’s Geonhak, and Seoho probably couldn’t help it even if he tried (not that he would). His shirt is ragged with too many years of use: holes poked in multiple random spots, the collar stretched wide enough it falls off of even Geonhak’s shoulders on one side, bares smooth skin and sharp collarbones. The shorts are somewhat new, Seoho thinks, some pajama set he vaguely remembered Dongju giving as a gag gift years ago, but Geonhak had staunchly refused to wear, even around the house.

He’d insisted the chicks printed all over them were embarrassingly childish.

Seoho wonders what changed his mind.

He also kind of wishes Geonhak hadn’t worn them at all, because not only do they put Geonhak’s thighs completely on display, they are also so out of character it’s ridiculously endearing.

Two of Seoho’s chief weaknesses, when it comes to Geonhak, although there are so many of those it isn’t saying much, probably.

Geonhak leaves the main room, and his voice drifts out of the hall when he says, “Actually, I think I have a radio, somewhere. My parents gave it to me. That might work better. I just have to find it.”

Seoho calls back, “Okay!” And decides to stay where he is and finish off his coffee. When he’s done, he’ll do the dishes, including Geonhak’s. As long as he cleans them well and leaves no spots behind, it should be fine by Geonhak.

His phone rings just as he picks up the sponge to squeeze soap onto it.

He switches it on speaker mode and props it up against the microwave so he can get to his self-appointed task. “Hello?”

“Uh, hi?” From the end of the hallway, still digging through the junk he’s kept stored away, Geonhak sounds terribly confused. Seoho giggles.

Cute.

“Hold on,” he murmurs, to whoever’s on the line. He raises his voice. “Not you, you silly chick! I’m on the phone!”

“Oh.” There’s a beat of silence, just Seoho’s laughter, and the soft chuckle of Youngjo on the other side of the phone. “Don’t call me a chick!” Geonhak yells next, belatedly.

Seoho full on cackles this time. 

“Don’t antagonize the guy you’re living with,” Youngjo says, teasing.

“Why not? What’s he gonna do? Kick me out?”

“He might.” 

“Yeah, actually,” Geonhak pipes up, coming back into the living room with a small box in hand. “I might.”

Seoho waves him off. “Sure you would, chickie. Right after you drink some of the coffee you made for me.”

Geonhak cocks his head, deliberately places down the box he’s holding with a little more force than necessary, and Seoho giggles nervously, backing as far as he can against the sink, hands up in surrender. 

He eyes the lines of Geonhak’s arms, the way he’s tensed them just slightly in warning, and thinks about how much power he knows they hold. Geonhak has always carefully controlled the force he uses, has always held his own strength in check with rigid discipline, but that had never stopped Seoho from feeling it thrumming underneath his skin and muscle, the way that even a deaf man could feel a speaker vibrate with the music it played.

“You guys really haven’t changed,” Youngjo observes, and Seoho averts his gaze, brought back into the present. “Even after a year of barely looking each other in the eye.”

Trust Youngjo not to hold back anything, as long as it’s true. Geonhak seems uncaring about the sudden jab, but Seoho finds himself reeling, laugh petering out until he’s just breathing kind of irregularly.

So his method of coping with the whole breakup he instigated himself hadn’t been the best. He knows this! 

He knows.

And he  _ is _ sorry. He’ll make it up to Geonhak one of these next few days.

If Youngjo notices the almost silence (and he probably does), he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, there’s a small commotion, and then Youngjo is saying, “The others want you on speaker.”

“I don’t have a choice?” Seoho says, but he can tell by the slight change in audio quality that the deed’s already been done.

“Nope,” chirps Keonhee. Youngjo just laughs quietly.

“Yah, Seoho-hyung, don’t tease Geonhak-hyung too much,” Dongju nags, which is ironic, considering it’s Dongju who plays the most pranks on Geonhak. “That’s my job.”

Seoho snorts. That’s more like Dongju.

“It’s—”

“No one’s job,” Geonhak interrupts Seoho, raising his voice loud enough for the phone to pick up. He’s bent over the coffee table, pulling an old radio— as promised— out of its box. “No one’s job is to make fun of me. You’re all just gremlins.”

Keonhee and Hwanwoong clearly resent being lumped in with that, if their in-sync exclamations are any sign.

“Except Youngjo-hyung,” Geonhak amends, though Youngjo hasn’t complained at all.

“Wha— what did I ever do to you, Geonhak-hyung?” Hwanwoong demands.

“Yeah!” Keonhee agrees.

“Don’t think I forgot about your little closet stunt last Christmas,” says Geonhak.

They immediately fall silent, and Seoho can just imagine them wincing. Youngjo’s snickering, and Dongju is laughing so loud Seoho’s just glad he isn’t holding the phone up to his ear.

Especially because Seoho is about to make it worse. “I didn’t forget either, you know,” he adds, trying to sound more upset than he is. Dongju’s practically screeching now. “I really wanted to throttle you two for that. I didn’t, because I wasn’t going to be a top researcher from a jail cell, but now that the law isn’t really anyone’s concern… Just saying, I know where you guys are, and I know Keonhee can’t run.”

Geonhak looks at him, and his eyes are twinkling, crinkling at the corners with his boyish smile, one Seoho thinks he really should have lost by now because he’s way too old to be considered a ‘boy’ at all. But Geonhak had always had a soft agelessness to him, so Seoho can’t say he’s surprised.

“He has a bike too,” Geonhak chimes in. “So it wouldn’t take him too long to get there.” He hums, as if thinking something over. “Actually, this bike looks big enough to hold us both, if you sit on the back, Seoho. I could get us there fairly fast, if you want to take them out now.”

Seoho bites back his amusement. The bike is  _ so  _ not big enough for that. That’s not what he says out loud, though. “I think you’re right.”

Keonhee whimpers.

Geonhak and Seoho burst into laughter, and Geonhak even stands, crossing the room to lean over the bar separating the kitchen from the rest of the house to offer a high five, which Seoho takes him up on.

“I take it that means you two are doing okay, then,” Youngjo notes dryly. “I was worried about you two getting along properly, at least for the first few days, but if you two can terrorize Keonhee together, you’re probably fine.”

“We  _ are _ fine. I don’t know why we wouldn’t be,” Geonhak says, coming into the kitchen and rifling through one of the lower cabinets until he pulls out a rag. “It’s been more than a year.” He straightens up and turns to face Seoho. “Seoho, in that drawer over there, there should be some batteries. Hand me four?”

“This one?” Seoho points. Geonhak nods. Seoho finds a half-empty box of batteries sitting right on top, so he plucks out the four Geonhak asked for and drops them into Geonhak’s waiting palm.

“A year isn’t always as much time as it sounds like,” Youngjo tells them, cryptic. Seoho wants to think he’s just trying to sound cool, but he has to admit it makes sense, kind of. Time is relative, after all. “And it isn’t exactly a secret how much you both cared for each other, even after everything.”

“Exactly.” Geonhak mutters, hunched over the radio again, and Seoho gestures at him that it was too soft, because he barely heard it— he doubts Youngjo would hear it any better. So Geonhak repeats it. “Exactly,” he says, at a much better volume. “So wouldn’t that just make it easier for us to make up? The affection and familiarity are all there already. Other people who break up badly, they have to find it again. We didn’t.”

“You have a point,” Youngjo muses.

He does. Seoho hadn’t thought about it that way. He’d been so preoccupied by what had happened between them that he hadn’t really considered anything else. If he had, maybe he wouldn’t have been so puzzled by how comfortable he felt fitting himself back into Geonhak’s life. Seoho doesn’t think it’ll stop feeling strange, but he does think he can let it go easier, now, knowing that what Geonhak says is true.

There’s a brief lull in the conversation, space for Seoho to say his own piece, if he wants. 

Seoho doesn’t want. He emphatically  _ doesn’t _ want.

Rather than say anything, he wanders back into the living room, phone in hand, and sits on the floor across from Geonhak, watching him wordlessly as he finishes wiping down the radio and checking all its components are in working order before inserting the batteries.

“So you guys are good?” asks Youngjo, finally taking the hint. “Enough food? No injuries? Water?”

“We’re good,” Seoho affirms. “But we should be asking you that. There’s more of you clustered in one place, and Keonhee—”

Geonhak switches on the radio, and starts fiddling with the dial, searching for a station with more than just static on. “What happened to Keonhee, actually? No one told me.”

“Seoho didn’t tell you?” Youngjo demands, and Seoho recoils at the reprimand in his tone.

“Sorry? I forgot.”

“He doesn’t care about me!” wails Keonhee in response, but Seoho knows by the warble of it— the on-the-verge-of-giggling kind— he’s forgiven already.

Youngjo clicks his tongue. “There, there, Keonhee-yah,” he murmurs, indulgent. Seoho’s almost certain he’s making a show of hushing him, stroking a hand down his spine comfortingly.

Geonhak rolls his eyes, and flicks off the radio, probably to give the others his full focus. Seoho tugs the device towards himself, curious about it, and Geonhak lets him. “So…? What’s the deal with Keonhee?”

The radio is one of those cheap ones, glaringly silver painted plastic peeling away to reveal dull gray beneath. Seoho’s glad the antenna seems to be in working order, if a little bent, and the battery slot shows no signs of prior leaks, though he should’ve expected that. Geonhak had looked at it already; he wouldn’t have started working it if he didn’t think it would amount to anything. 

Seoho only hopes the inner mechanisms have stood the test of time enough that if they do find a station, it will be comprehensible.

He also hopes there will be a broadcast to hear at all, but that particular hope is a little less likely, in the scheme of things.

Meanwhile: “I fell,” Keonhee states simply, as if that explains everything.

“He got startled by a streetlamp bashing into his wall and, you know how he is—” Dongju says, and his voice is extremely exasperated, but underneath it, Seoho can hear the deep worry in his words. Seoho knows the first quality is entirely put upon, a coping mechanism. Geonhak knows it too. As do the others, probably, which is why they let him get away with it. “He fell and somehow landed knees-first into some broken glass. In  _ shorts _ .”

“I may have been having dinner and… the wine glasses that hang above the bar? They basically…  _ tinktinktinktinktink! _ Rained onto the floor, you know? I was trying to pick my way out of all the broken glass when the wall smashed and…”

“Dongju found him just barely bandaged. And kind of panicky,” Hwanwoong adds. “He helped Keonhee pick out the shards in his wounds, wrapped them tighter and carried him over. It was kind of badass.”

“My hero!” Keonhee trills happily, and Dongju whines, flustered.

“We got him properly looked at by my neighbor, who’s a family doctor,” Youngjo says. “He said Dongju did a pretty good job of it, and he had very little to clean up out of it.”

“I’m leaving,” Dongju declares.

He  _ does _ go; Seoho can hear his footsteps, and by the quirk of Geonhak’s mouth, so can he.

“So you’re fine then?” Geonhak murmurs, low. “Keonhee?” 

“Hm? Oh, well, yeah. As fine as I can get.”

“Good.”

/////

They talk a little longer; Seoho ensures Youngjo and them have enough food and supplies, and again, the offer of Geonhak’s place is extended— by Geonhak himself, this time. Youngjo turns him down gently, says they’re fine where they are.

There’s something else unsaid, Seoho thinks. He can feel it in the soft whirr of what sounds like Youngjo’s ancient electric fan in the background of the call, in the soft clearing of Youngjo’s throat.

But whatever the words on Youngjo’s tongue are, they never make it out into the open. He only says, “Take care, you guys. We’re bound to get more aftershocks. With a quake that big…”

“Yeah, probably,” agrees Seoho. “We weren’t really the epicenter, so we won’t get as many as other places, but… we’ll be seeing more than we’ve had. Probably for a few more weeks if we’re lucky enough to last that—  _ hey! _ ” He yelps, batting none-too-lightly at Geonhak’s hand. “What was that for?”

“Don’t be so grim,” Geonhak warns. “Or I’ll pinch you again.”

Seoho has complaints— especially on his side’s behalf, because  _ ouch _ ? Geonhak always did it so  _ hard _ . “This is abuse!”

“Be lucky it’s me and not Dongju,” comes the unbothered answer, as Geonhak reclaims the radio from Seoho’s grasp. “He would’ve bitten you.”

Seoho pulls a face.

“Exactly.” Geonhak gives a grave nod, and then switches on the radio again, delicately fingering the knob and twisting it first to the left, slow and steady so he won’t miss anything that might be dialogue. 

Seoho turns to his phone to complain, but it looks like somewhere in the middle of the last exchange, Youngjo had gone ahead and hung up without so much as a proper goodbye. Rude.

Oh well. It’s probably for the best.

“You forgot the antenna,” Seoho points out. He doesn’t wait for a response, just reaches over and extends it himself. There aren’t any obvious effects, but Seoho knows at least this way, they’re less likely to skip past a station with something on it.

Geonhak must hit the end of available frequencies— or so Seoho assumes— because he stops turning left, switches which hand is on the dial, and spins it the other way.

Seoho watches the tiny indicator slide along the numbered track, watches it creep closer and closer to the edge. If there isn’t any news available at all, Seoho won’t be surprised; he doubts Geonhak will be either.

It will still be disappointing though.

Geonhak lets his hand fall to the tabletop. 

The hiss of static fills the room, simultaneously hollow and too heavy for Seoho to really bear.

He turns the radio off, and Geonhak lets him.

“There might be something on later,” says Geonhak, optimistic as always. He stands and picks up the radio, then vanishes down the hallway, into his bedroom.

Seoho’s brow furrows. What is he…

When Geonhak returns a few seconds later, hands empty, he explains, “I put it by the bed. We can check it again tonight, and if we don’t get anything, we’ll try again in the morning. We—”

He freezes, voice dying in his throat, and at first, Seoho doesn’t get it.

But then he registers the picture frame on the wall (the only one Geonhak’s hung throughout the whole house; Seoho doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it until now, wonders who is in it) wobbling and he feels the floor trembling beneath his fingers. He makes eye contact with Geonhak, who is slowly lowering himself to the floor. “Get under the dining table,” Seoho instructs, amidst the miscellaneous rattling sounds of a building shaken from its very foundations, and everything else inside it.

Geonhak flashes a thumbs up and starts to crawl that way. “You too?”

Seoho is already halfway there, so he thinks that’s a given, but he says, “Yes,” anyway.

“How long should it last?” asks Geonhak, when they’ve made it. They’re hunched uncomfortably under Geonhak’s little dining table, and Seoho has made sure neither of them have their spines or heads exposed, in case the worst should happen— a.k.a, a giant chunk of the ceiling coming down to crush them. It isn’t a big enough space for two grown men, especially men their size, neither of them particularly small, so each of them have an arm and shoulder, maybe a bit of their foot, sticking out from underneath the edge.

Still a better sacrifice than the central nervous system that  _ literally _ handles the entirety of their bodies’ functionality. A smashed hand or dislocated shoulder would be a million times better than paralysis, or worse,  _ death _ .

Seoho shrugs, curling a hand around one of the table legs closest to him and signaling for Geonhak to do the same. “The aftershocks on the way here lasted like two minutes, roughly. It shouldn’t be longer than that. But last I heard, the earthquake yesterday was just a sample of what’s to come, so…”

Geonhak frowns, grip tightening around the table until his knuckles go white. Seoho eyes him and says nothing more, waits until Geonhak has forcibly relaxed himself. “What’s happening?” he asks, voice almost a whisper.

And Seoho— 

He wishes he had an answer to give. Some kind of explanation. 

But all he can say is, “I was a biologist, ‘Hak, not a geologist. All I know is something isn’t right with the core of the planet, and that’s offsetting a lot of other things in the environment.” 

He could go on and on about the way the atmosphere has been changing, and how that’s been making itself more and more evident in animal systems and adaptations over the last few years, especially in humans, but… now is not the time, and really, what would that do? It wouldn’t teach them anything new, wouldn’t help them prepare any better than they already are.

“Oh.”

The shaking stops forty seconds later. They both hesitate, cautious, afraid to step out only for another aftershock to hit. 

Of course, it’s Geonhak who pokes his head out first, who shuffles out from their shelter and stands, spinning around to offer Seoho his hand when everything remains stable. 

It seems like it’s always Geonhak that makes the first move— for the things that matter, at any rate.

All Seoho’s ever known how to do is follow after him, let himself be led.

He allows Geonhak to pull him to his feet.

“Well,” coughs Seoho, “that was certainly one way to start off the day.”

Geonhak snorts, amused despite himself, and he releases Seoho’s hand with a reluctance Seoho only catches because it’s Geonhak, and Seoho is… Seoho.

They’ve known each other too long for Seoho  _ not _ to catch it.

He doesn’t question it, though. He knows what it means, and even if that’s what he came here for, selfishly…

He wants to take this slow. 

He wants to do this right.

“What should we do now?” Geonhak asks. “Are you hungry?” He’s reaching into the fridge already, pulling things out and putting them on the counter.

“Mm… a little.”

Geonhak nods. “I’ll make eggs, then. Scrambled?”

“Sure.” Seoho joins him in the kitchen. “Want me to start the rice?”

“Please.”

They work in silence, after that. The kitchen space isn’t all that big, but this isn’t the first time the two of them have had to deal with less than ideal room to manoeuvre in— far from it; and though they bicker a lot regardless, they don’t actually get into each other’s way except on purpose.

And for now, it seems neither of them have the energy to pick any fights, because they move smoothly around and beside each other, not even a stray brush of arms.

When Seoho’s rinsed the rice and set it to cook, he reaches for the dishes and sets the table for them, passing Geonhak the spatula before he can ask for it— because of course he’d remembered everything but that, just because he hadn’t needed it immediately. How very like him.

Geonhak smiles softly at Seoho in thanks, and sets about finishing the eggs. The rice will be a bit longer, and the quiet is getting uncomfortable, almost stifling, at least to Seoho— Geonhak doesn’t seem to notice it, but Seoho can feel it weighing down his shoulders, settling in the crooks of his elbows. So Seoho decides that this… this is the perfect time to get annoying.

“You know, you really should have waited a bit after I’d started the rice to—”

The stove gets switched off with a click, and then Geonhak’s tossing a look over his shoulder, half-threatening and half-curious, like he knows what’s coming can’t be good, but can’t help but see how it unfolds.

“—cook that,” Seoho finishes. And if he leaves it at that, it’ll be fine. No harm, no foul, except maybe a snappish retort from Geonhak with no real bite. But then, Seoho’s always been a daredevil; he grins in the face of death! So he says, “You’re stupid. Now the egg’s gonna get cold and soggy and—”

Geonhak plates the eggs, then drops the spatula in the sink with a clatter, tilting his head to one side— it cracks, slightly, loud enough for even Seoho to hear. His smile is all edges, all teeth. 

And maybe Seoho does grin in the face of death, but he never said it was a  _ confident _ one. It’s really more nervous than that.

“What? What did you call me?”

Seoho runs.

He stubs his toe on one of the chairs and hears it thump against the floor, but doesn’t bother to do more than swear about it under his breath. He can hear Geonhak’s footsteps behind him, quick, but not sprinting because— let’s face it, Geonhak can absolutely outrun Seoho.

Seoho’s giggling, high-pitched and breathless, and Geonhak’s not laughing but Seoho chances a glance over his shoulder and sees his lips curving, bright and lovely. They circle the living room a couple of times, around the dining table and the fallen chair a few more times, before Geonhak gives up and wanders back into the kitchen to check on the rice.

“You’re so annoying,” huffs Geonhak, quietly sulky. As if it hadn’t been his own decision not to catch Seoho.

In response, Seoho pretends the same, because it’s only polite, isn’t it? He makes a silly face, sticking his thumbs into his cheeks and waggling the rest of his fingers at Geonhak in mocking. “You’re so  _ grumpy _ .”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I am not.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I— you know what, the rice is ready, let’s just eat.”

Seoho chuckles to himself, bending down to right the chair he’d knocked over earlier. “Sure,” he agrees easily.

He takes his place at the table. A few seconds later, Geonhak sets down the plate of eggs and the rice pot in the middle, then takes a seat himself.

“It looks good, ‘Hak,” says Seoho, because it does.

Geonhak shrugs. “It’s just eggs,” he replies, but there’s a little uptick to the corner of his lips, warm and sunny.

_ It’s not the eggs _ , thinks Seoho. 

It’s the way Geonhak looks in the morning light filtering in through the blinds, striped with liquid gold. It’s the way his voice sinks into Seoho’s newly refilled cup of coffee like too-sweet syrup he somehow can’t get enough of, rich and heady and addicting. It’s the deliberate care and single-mindedness with which Geonhak has tended to all the things Seoho has asked him to do, and a thousand other things he hasn't.

_ It’s you. It’s this: a morning with you. _

But he keeps those thoughts to himself and digs in.

/////

They’re doing the dishes again, because of course they can’t just leave them there, grimy and gross, once they’ve eaten.

“What do you want to do today?” Geonhak asks, as he passes Seoho the last of the dishes.

“Depends. What  _ is _ there to do?”

Geonhak opens his mouth to answer. Then he shuts it, squinting at Seoho instead. “I can’t tell if you’re—”

“It’s a genuine question, this time,” Seoho says, rolling his eyes. “I don’t exist solely to antagonize you, you know.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” retorts Geonhak, laughing airily when Seoho swats at his hip with the dish towel, offended.

Seoho swats him one last time for good measure, and is pleased to find Geonhak lets him get away with it. “Just answer the question, geez, ‘Hak.”

Geonhak sighs, as if this is such a chore. “Okay, okay.” He plucks the dish towel right out of Seoho’s hand and wipes his hands dry on it— which is  _ awful.  _ The hand towel is  _ right fucking there. _ Seoho hates this.

He scowls to show it, but Geonhak just breezes past him and out of the kitchen, uncaring.

Well, fine. Let him be gross, then.

“I have to do my routine, soon,” Geonhak says. 

Seoho’s a little shocked he hasn’t done it yet, to say the least. Geonhak has always liked to work out at the crack of dawn; he’s a morning person, as tragic as it is. 

“I usually start earlier in the day, but I didn’t want to wake you, and the dumbbells were under your side of the bed,” Geonhak explains with a little puff of breath, and ah, okay.

Seoho winces. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “But in my defense, you got into bed first, so you’re the one who left that side open.”

Geonhak shrugs, but his lips are pursed a little. “Yeah. I wasn’t complaining.”

“You’re pouting,” Seoho points out, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. “You  _ are _ complaining.”

“I do not  _ pout _ ,” sniffs Geonhak, which is as good as an admittance that he is, in fact, complaining. He shoves the couch slowly backward until it hits the wall. “And I left you that space because that’s your side of the bed. Always has been.”

“Always?” echoes Seoho. Always? He knows, vaguely, in a borderline sort of awareness, that he’s always preferred the left side— but he’s always been pretty easygoing. He certainly never really cared enough one way or the other to have made any statements to Geonhak about it, he’s pretty sure, and he wouldn’t have complained if he’d had to take the other side. 

And what about when Seoho hadn’t been here? Had it still been his side then?

Geonhak nods, and Seoho jolts, touched, before shaking himself out of it. It isn’t an answer to his thoughts; Geonhak can’t read minds, not even Seoho’s, though he comes pretty close more often than not. 

And sure, Seoho’s still touched, but Geonhak noticing his habits isn’t new. He’s always done that, has always quietly accommodated Seoho’s idiosyncrasies and quirks, has always absorbed every tic, every habit, with those bright eyes of his.

Then again, maybe even the missing him, the saving him space… maybe that isn’t as new as Seoho feels it is. He’d come here, after all, because Geonhak had welcomed him first, had said quite frankly that despite Seoho never living here before— not even for a day— it had always felt like it belonged to Seoho.

So maybe all of this is old news after all. That he would consider the left side of the bed Seoho’s side, even if Seoho had never so much as touched it before last night... maybe that isn’t any newer than anything else between them.

By now, Geonhak has moved the coffee table out of the way too, and he produces a rolled up yoga mat from practically thin air, like magic.

“It’s not magic,” grunts Geonhak, with a roll of his eyes when Seoho tells him this. “It’s in one of the drawers under the TV. Did you want to join me? I don’t have a spare yoga mat, but you could use this, and I could make do without it.”

“Aren’t those drawers supposed to be for like— plugs and stuff? DVDs? Game controllers?” Seoho asks, puttering around the kitchen without doing anything, really, because there’s nothing to do. “Things to do with the TV?”

“Yah,” Geonhak snaps, unrolling the mat and laying it out in the center of the newly cleared space. “Do you need to be so annoying? Are you joining me or not?”

“I haven’t done all that much beyond a treadmill and a couple of push-ups once a week in years,” says Seoho.

Geonhak eyes him flatly. “Parkour, Seoho. You do parkour. You try to drag the others with you all the time. You used to drag  _ me _ .”

“Not often!”

“Twice a week.”

“Not—”

“For anywhere from an hour to three.”

“But I—”

“You know, you could just say ‘no.’” Geonhak crosses his legs underneath him, settling on the mat. “Or ‘yes’, if that’s what you want.”

This feels like a distinctly familiar conversation. Or at the very least, the last thing feels like something Geonhak has told him before, even if the rest of it is just… random chatter. 

The next words from Seoho’s mouth taste, too, like deja vu. “I know that. I’m deciding still,” he says, but they both know it’s nothing but a flimsy sort of deflection, as was everything else beforehand. Seoho isn’t good at honesty— never had been. And Geonhak, well, he may not be the most upfront person, but where it matters, he’s plain-spoken and direct, unshrinking… there are no bells, no whistles, no flowery gardens to root through to find what he really means.

It’s kind of ridiculous that something as mundane as working out together would trigger Seoho’s flightiness, when just last night, they’d been snuggled together— and that was  _ after  _ having a very emotionally charged, very vulnerable conversation, one that not too long ago, he would have been more than happy to avoid even if it cost him every single one of his limbs.

Maybe this is his subconsciousness’ way of compensating? Displacement, right— that’s a coping mechanism. You reappropriate the bad feelings onto something safer, something with less consequences attached. Seoho honestly isn’t sure if that applies here, considering he only took one _ Intro to Psychology _ class in his freshman year of college (whereupon he decided it was pretentious and boring and not at all up his alley and never took another psychology class again), but it’s close enough. Yesterday… avoiding a conversation like that could have been pretty disastrous. If they were going to live together, if they were going to be anywhere near comfortable, things needed to be addressed.

Otherwise, Geonhak would have spent the rest of the foreseeable future tiptoeing around Seoho, which would have irritated him and made him snappy, which would have made  _ Geonhak _ upset and—

You get the picture.

So anyway, maybe that’s what this is. Seoho displacing all of what should have been yesterday’s trepidation and skittishness onto today, when the worst that’ll happen is a huffy, impatient Geonhak.

Maybe.

“Seoho? Hello?” Geonhak waves a hand to get Seoho’s attention, eyebrows raised. 

Seoho wonders, idly, how long he’d drifted off this time. A minute? Two? Maybe none at all; maybe just a fraction of one. 

“Yes? No? Any answer at all?” Geonhak pauses to brush his hair out of his face. “Preferably some time today,” he adds. Then, in a softer tone, “I told you a long time ago: it’s okay to be honest about things. Not everything needs a complicated reason or excuse— especially with me. There’s no one here to be polite for.”

Seoho laughs sheepishly, all air, scratching gently at his cheek for lack of anything else to do with his hands. “Sorry,” he says. “Force of habit.”

“I know,” Geonhak replies, and Seoho knows he does. Of course he does. “That’s why I’m reminding you.”

Seoho considers, humming under his breath. “Okay,” he says, finally.

Geonhak’s brow wrinkles. “Okay?”

“Okay, I’ll join you.” And this— this is such a small,  _ inconsequential _ thing, and yet, for reasons Seoho can’t and won’t attempt to fathom, it feels like something massive, something grand giving way inside him, though what he’s caving to, what will fill the space left behind, he has not the slightest clue.

Geonhak smiles and climbs to his feet, taking two wide steps sideways, the arm nearest the mat extended parallel to the ground as he gauges how much space they’ll need to stand apart. So eager. So easily pleased. So unafraid to show it— because it’s only Seoho here, as he’d said, no one to be polite or keep a tough front for. “Okay,” Geonhak murmurs, satisfied after one more half-step. “Then you take the mat. Do you still remember the warm up routine we used to do?”

“No,” lies Seoho.

“Liar,” comes the retort, almost before Seoho has finished speaking; impressive, given that he’d only said a single syllable.

“Why’d you ask, then, if you were just gonna dismiss my answer?”

Geonhak shrugs, apparently reason-less. He’ll never admit it, but he likes to pick arguments just as often as Seoho does, so Seoho can’t say he’s surprised. “Get over here already.”

He does.

/////

There’s another aftershock later in the afternoon as the sun starts to sink down in the sky, arcs of red and orange seeping into the blue of the day like paint through water. Geonhak’s blinds are down at Seoho’s insistence, and outside, the world shakes and trembles. The opposite row of townhouses, mirror images of Geonhak’s, with their elegantly wrought balcony rails and their neatly framed shiny glass windows won’t stay still; the streetlight Geonhak had mentioned (just barely visible from their current position) shifts, slightly, groans against cement before it knocks loose a rainfall of debris.

This one lasts just twenty-two seconds, according to the watch Geonhak insists on wearing.

Seoho feels a little like a marble in a jar, like he’s just been rattled around by a curious child. His head swims, dizzy, probably from trying too hard to track the movement of things.

He’s still better off than Geonhak though, who had, when ducking underneath the table, knocked his head against the edge and recoiled with a growled out curse before Seoho had yanked him properly under their little shelter by the collar of his shirt, uncaring of the threads he heard snapping from the force of the gesture.

“Have sunsets always been this red?” Geonhak asks, padding over to the window, forehead creased with concern.

“Maybe? Again, I’m a biologist.  _ Bio _ . You know, life? The sky is… definitely not alive.”

“Not last  _ you _ checked.”

Seoho rolls his eyes. “It might be fires. There were bound to be some, with an earthquake that big. We may not have noticed the signs yesterday, or the ash and such may not have reached here yet,” he says, rather than acknowledge that particularly idiotic retort. “Or it might be something to do with changing atmosphere chemistry. I can only make guesses since I’m not out in the field, ‘Hak, and really, it would be easier for me to give a run down of the Han river’s ecosystem from the single-cell organism level all the way up to people, than—”

“Okay! Okay, I get it.”

“Do you? Because—”

“Please. Don’t.”

Seoho lets out a peal of laughter, bright and amused. “You know, it’s kind of… aesthetic,” he mumbles, letting his feet carry him into the bedroom without thinking. 

“Huh? I guess, if you ignore the fact that it probably only spells more trouble— where are you going?”

Seoho returns, loading a pack of film into his polaroid as he does. He waves it in answer.

“Why… you brought that with you?” Geonhak is frowning at him, half in confusion, half in disapproval.

“Why not?” Seoho demands, maybe a little defensively. He pulls the camera closer to his chest. Was he not allowed to want keepsakes? Everything was going to shit, yeah, but who knew how long (or how quick) it would be? It could take an instant. It could take months. It could take years, maybe even a decade, though probably not much more beyond that.

And Seoho, for all his fronts and facades, had always been a pretty sentimental person.

Besides, wasn’t it human nature to want to capture and immortalize beautiful things— beautiful people?

“Because you could have brought more necessities with you, or—”

“‘Hak,” says Seoho, quiet, wavering, but solid enough to draw Geonhak’s mouth into a thin line, the sentence he might have said clipped short as he waits for Seoho to speak. “The world is ending anyway,” Seoho continues, smiling a smile as brittle as those fine, shiny sheets of sugar Keonhee liked to buy, sometimes, when he decided he deserved a little luxury, like glass but much more fragile, sweet and sticky, translucent enough to look through, but too distorted to be a lens. Geonhak’s mouth twists a little at the sight of Seoho’s expression, same as it always did when Keonhee, generous to a fault, always offered his precious candy to share. 

He’d never liked sweets, much either, that Geonhak.

“No amount of survival preparation will delay that, really. And I knew you and I, we’d find a way; I didn’t come entirely unprepared, either,” Seoho points out in his defense. Then he says, “But if the world is ending, and all of this—” he gestures vaguely at the apartment around him, at him and Geonhak where they stand mere feet from each other, at the world outside like another planet entirely, the horizon doused in hues of vermillion and coral— “is going to implode one day, I might as well enjoy it, right? Treasure it while I can. I didn’t do that nearly enough when I was off chasing the next great discovery.” 

It’s true. Seoho had been so busy trying to change the world he’d stopped seeing it,  _ living _ in it, by the time he’d turned twenty-five. It had been one of the points of contention between him and Geonhak, those last few months before the split, and for many years even before that. 

Of course, back then, he’d chosen to ignore it rather than address it.

But does this really count as a choice? Or had the freedom to make that choice been wrested from him long before he even attempted to make it?

Does that even matter, though? Maybe it’s inconsequential, in the grand scheme of things. Seoho keeps saying he’ll let this thread of thought go, only to pick it up and worry at the frayed ends of it all over again, a bad habit he can’t shake. 

More important is what he meant to immortalize in the film he’s brought: when he’d said ‘all this’ did Geonhak know Seoho had meant more than the world, this place? Did he know exactly what Seoho meant? That it’s them, that it’s  _ him _ —  _ Geonhak _ — that Seoho wants to keep so badly? 

Geonhak sighs, “You’re deep diving into your own head again. Why don’t you come up for air, Seoho?”

Seoho blinks back into focus, grip tightening on the camera slowly but surely slipping from his grasp. “Hm?”

“Breathe,” says Geonhak.

Seoho is pretty sure he’s  _ been _ breathing, but he does as he’s told and sucks in a slow, deep inhale, recentering himself, his attention.

Geonhak raises a brow at him. “Better?”

He nods. Somehow, it is— better that is. He doesn’t know how, but it is. The ground feels steadier under his feet, as if the aftershock hadn’t ended until now, until Geonhak had said so. Seoho doesn’t mention this. He only says, “Stay there, please?”

“That won’t come out well,” Geonhak replies, but he does as he’s told, shifts only to lean against the wall comfortably. “We haven’t switched on any lights, and there isn’t enough sun. Even if there was, it would be behind me.”

“There’s a flash.”

“It won’t come out well.”

Seoho clicks his tongue and turns on the camera. “Just. Shh.” He presses the button. The flash bursts, then fades, and Seoho’s clunky old camera whines as it pushes out the film, frame blank and white. Seoho sets it down on the coffee table to develop, snickering softly at Geonhak where he’s trying to blink the flash from his eyes.

“It’ll turn out fine,” says Seoho.

“Okay. Couldn’t you have warned me? What if I was making a face? Or I sneezed?”

“You didn’t though.”

Geonhak just grumbles something inaudible. 

“Speaking of pictures,” Seoho mumbles, suddenly recalling this morning. He stands and spots it easily, hanging against the wall just beside the corner of the hallway.

The frame catches his eye first, simple and sleek, a black unadorned wooden frame still askew from earlier; no one had remembered to set it straight. Without thinking, Seoho nudges it back in line. 

The second thing he registers is who the picture is of: it’s them. It’s Seoho’s graduation dinner, if he remembers right. The five of them— Seoho and Geonhak, Keonhee, Hwanwoong and Dongju— had found themselves in a far too fancy restaurant that served things in honest-to-god courses from set menus, shepherded by a blindingly proud Youngjo, who’d stubbornly kept mum about the prices and refused to accept any form of repayment or contribution. 

(They’d been in suits that day, a rare thing; Seoho sees in his mind’s eye the way that Geonhak had refused to buy a new one because he insisted the one he had still fit, and he hadn’t been  _ quite _ incorrect, but… his sleeves had been just a little too tight, the shoulders of his jacket not broad enough, restricting his movement. It had ended up slung over his arm or the back of his chair for most of the night— at least, until he’d lost it on the bus on their way back.)

The shot was taken by Youngjo with his front camera, his smile big and bright and partly cut off by the frame, the others in the back piled on top of Seoho with grins so wide their eyes were practically shut from the force of it. Geonhak’s arm, hidden from the camera’s view, but unfailingly stark in the relief of Seoho’s memories, had burned like a small sun against the small of his back. 

“Didn’t we have the waiter take one?” asks Seoho, tracing with his eyes all the ways he sees, now, that they’ve changed, each and every one of them. 

Geonhak shrugs. “I liked this one better,” he says, simply.

Seoho considers that. “Same here,” he decides. This one was more authentic anyhow.

“I told you it wouldn’t come out well,” says Geonhak, next. Seoho turns to find him holding the polaroid aloft, waving it pointedly.

“Gimme that.” Seoho snatches at the picture, and Geonhak relinquishes it easily, hands up almost in surrender. He was right, Seoho grouses internally. The exposure is weird, foggy. “I think my film is old,” says Seoho. This doesn’t look like a lighting problem or anything. Geonhak in the image is hazy, and maybe a little oddly shadowed, but he’s still recognizable.

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.”

“Okay then.” Geonhak’s hand brushes up against Seoho’s shoulder, less than a second of contact; his palm doesn’t even settle, just the tips of his fingers skating over the fabric of Seoho’s shirt sleeve. 

Still, Seoho feels them, five distinct points, burning stars pressed to his skin— like some kind of constellation, branding a mark into him.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you can’t really see me clearly,” Geonhak adds, like an afterthought, and Seoho is too distracted from the heat still blooming against his shoulder to retort immediately. “But whatever.”

As Seoho’s faculties come back online, shaking out of his weird trance with a little jerk of his head, he says, “I see you just fine. I’m not the one between us who needs glasses.”

Geonhak rolls his eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Do I?”

Geonhak knocks him upside the head, and Seoho can’t even complain, snickering into his palm.

/////

Night falls and brings with it a silence that seems to blanket everything in the apartment, from the coffee table and the kitchen counter, down to the radio Seoho has picked up, thumbing at the knob and pinching delicately at the antenna to shift it by a millimeter or so every few stations he passes.

The fuzz coming through the radio’s old speaker is noise, Seoho guesses, but it doesn’t feel like it.

Gone, too, are all the empty words that Geonhak and he had volleyed back and forth earlier in the day. They’ve scarcely spoken in the past two hours or so, other than a few short sentences over dinner to confirm what they’d reheat, or to ask for a napkin to be passed over. 

Even when they did the dishes, there was no sound but the running of the faucet.

Geonhak doesn’t seem to mind. He flashes small smiles Seoho’s way when they make eye contact, like little slivers of gold; when they’re close, he touches Seoho so casually, so easily— a bump of their hips, maybe, or a thumb rubbing at a knot at the base of his neck for just a few blissful seconds before it’s gone again.

Still, he says nothing.

It’s as if, in all their bickering, they’ve exhausted their voices. No battery, please recharge.

Truthfully, Seoho doesn’t mind all that much, either— the quiet, that is. He’d lived on his own for little over a year before coming here, after all. Sometimes he’d filled it, sure, singing whatever song the radio had gotten stuck in his head for the month, or else the highest note he could think of, just to see if he could still reach it… but more often than not, Seoho’s company had been the silence, and it had been almost comforting in its emptiness.

Now, Geonhak is sitting at his desk, going through the motions of another workout with a set of dumbbells. He’s looking at Seoho, dark eyes drinking him in where he’s stretched out on the bed, on top of the covers.

Seoho can’t figure out for the life of him what’s worth looking at, but the attention isn’t bothering him, so he ignores it.

After another five minutes of fruitless broadcast hunting, he switches off the radio with a sigh, setting it back on the nightstand with a definitive click of plastic against wood.

Geonhak rolls his desk chair over to the bedside, down by the foot of the bed. He sets his dumbbells back down, nudging them with socked feet until they’re neatly in line.

“Were you waiting for me?” Seoho asks, raising his eyebrows.

Geonhak grunts, standing up. He stretches his arms over his head and rolls his shoulders. “Maybe,” he admits. “You seemed pretty focused. Didn’t want to interrupt.”

“What is it?”

When Seoho looks up, he sees Geonhak tonguing at the inside of his cheek, pushing it out slightly. It’s like he’s trying to taste the words before he says them. What does he taste, Seoho wonders? Will the words be sweet? Bitter? “I don’t think I actually asked how you’ve been,” he says finally. “I just… it seems a bit important to ask.”

Seoho would have thought the opposite, really. What’s so interesting, so urgent about the mundanities of how he’s been?

“I’ve been fine,” he answers, eventually.

Geonhak waits. 

And waits some more. 

He blinks. “That’s it?” he demands.

Seoho bites back an amused grin. He nods. “Yeah?”

Geonhak narrows his eyes.

“What else do you want me to say?” Seoho asks, even though he knows it doesn’t matter what he says. Geonhak will happily take anything Seoho gives him.

For a moment, a very fleeting one, Geonhak looks ready to argue, or complain at the very least— but then all at once, he deflates with a sigh. “You’re so weird,” he announces, slumping into his chair.

“Hm?”

“You’re  _ weird _ ,” Geonhak repeats, with emphasis, even though he must know Seoho had heard him— was asking for elaboration not repetition. 

Seoho sticks out his tongue. “Are you gonna explain?”

Geonhak looks at him carefully. “No,” he says, after a long moment. “I don’t think I will.”

“Why not?”

A shrug. With a huff, Seoho settles back down into bed. Then, he reconsiders being  _ over  _ the covers, cold (bearably, certainly, but cold nonetheless) and stands so he can pull them back and crawl under them. It’s probably too early for anything like sleep, but Seoho can’t think of anything else to do.

Besides, he could use the extra covers right now. He doesn’t enjoy feeling exposed, really, and there’s something about Geonhak’s gaze that makes Seoho feel like he’s being deconstructed, broken down into elements and neatly labeled for study under a microscope.

“I’ve been fine,” he says again, several minutes later. It’s ridiculous, because Geonhak’s begun fiddling around on his laptop, his thick, probably noise-cancelling headphones on, long moved past the topic. He’s probably forgotten he even asked. “I was…” he laughs, helplessly, tragically. “I was doing really well, ‘Hak. I had these great opportunities lined up, I’d connected with some people that seemed really excited about my ideas, who might have helped me make them happen. And now, it’s like—”

He sweeps an arm out. Now the world is ending. Now all of that was for naught. 

Here’s the thing: Geonhak had been the only person Seoho had really loved. Sure, he’d had crushes, had had girlfriends and boyfriends alike in the years before they’d gotten together. He’d had one night stands, and memorably, a friend with benefits for about three months. He’d liked them all fine, had trusted them and enjoyed their company, but he hadn’t loved them the way he’d learned to love Geonhak— deeply, with no reservations, with no limitations. Geonhak had known everything about him, and the reverse was just as true. 

He’d never loved anyone so wholly as he’d loved Geonhak. How could he have? Seoho had never known anyone else so completely.

He’d gotten this back, had had it gently set back in his hands by Fate herself, and it was more than Seoho could have ever wished for. 

But just because Geonhak was the only  _ person _ Seoho had truly loved, didn’t mean he was the only  _ thing _ .

Seoho had loved science, too. He’d loved the thrill of discovery, the idea that maybe, one day, he would change lives. He’d thrived knowing that he was constantly learning, had been fascinated by all the complexities of each seemingly simple organism.

He’d… Seoho had loved his work. Had loved his ambition. Had loved feeling like he had a purpose worth chasing.

Seoho doesn’t expect to be heard, expects his frustration and his bitterness, even in the face of this sweet reunion of theirs, to get sucked up by the foam barriers of Geonhak’s headphones, along with whatever other fancy technology made them so soundproof, so isolating.

But like he’s been waiting, Geonhak reaches up and tugs his headphones off, twisting in his seat slightly to meet Seoho’s gaze. “Yeah? Like what, Seoho?” At Seoho’s befuddled stare, he gestures at his headphones. “I only had one side on, Seoho. And I had the noise cancellation off and the volume low,” he explains.

“Oh.” Seoho can feel warmth unfurling in the apples of his cheeks. He hadn’t actually meant to be heard, not really. “I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for—” All of a sudden, his throat closes up, but he knows Geonhak will understand.

He usually did.

“I get it,” says Geonhak, as Seoho falls silent. His voice is low, gentle, smooth as a balm. “This isn’t the kind of thing that comes without loss. You’re allowed to miss your old life.”

Old life— that’s all it was now, huh? Everything he’d run after, everything he’d killed himself to achieve, all it amounted to in the end was just another thing he’d left behind.

Maybe it wasn’t by choice, but what comfort is that? It’s almost worse.

“Do you miss yours?” Seoho murmurs, staring up at the ceiling and its smooth white plaster as if that would reveal the answer, because Geonhak— surely Geonhak had lost something too. Surely, Seoho isn’t the only one between them who can’t help but be bitter this had happened, even if it had brought them back together.

“Of course I did,” Geonhak breathes. In his peripheral vision, Seoho can see him move, shut his laptop and set the headphones down on the desk with a soft click. He runs a hand through his hair. “You forget, I was doing my dream job too. We were starting to prep the classrooms, you know, for the kids to return. I was really looking forward to seeing them everyday again, to making their last year before elementary memorable for them and their parents.” Seoho twists his head to look at Geonhak; he’s leaning back in his chair, body suddenly looking so heavy, too heavy for him to hold up. His eyes aren’t glassy, but it’s a near thing. They’re shinier than usual, just the barest suggestion of the  _ possibility _ of tears, and nothing more.

Or maybe that’s Seoho projecting.

Whatever.

“The kids… I don’t know if I should feel sorry for them or relieved. They have so little to lose, but also, actually— they’re losing everything, and they don’t even know it.”

“It’s a small mercy, I guess, that they don’t,” replies Seoho. “Isn’t it?”

Geonhak hums. “Yeah.” He drums his fingers idly against his desk. “I hope they’re all okay.”

Seoho does not say,  _ I’m sure they are _ . Someone else might, in his place; it’s just polite, just reassuring and kind. A white lie, that’s all.

But strangely enough, this is one of the few times Seoho refuses to say something he doesn’t mean. He doesn’t take giving comfort lightly.

He doesn’t have anything else to say, either, but his gaze is somber, and though Geonhak doesn’t turn to meet it, Seoho knows that Geonhak knows it’s on him, knows Seoho is granting him his full, undivided attention.

“Let’s go to bed.” The chair creaks as Geonhak stands from it, and Seoho contemplates standing, too, just so he can fiddle around with a couple of other things first, and maybe grab a glass of water, but he decides he’s feeling much too comfortable to leave his spot. 

He settles deeper into his pillow. “Isn’t it too early?” Seoho questions, blinking at the sudden darkness that floods his vision as Geonhak switches the lights off. A glance at his phone’s clock shows the time as 8 p.m.

“Maybe,” says Geonhak, voice drifting over from around the doorway, where the switch is. Seoho’s eyes are still adjusting, but he’s fairly certain he sees Geonhak shrug. “But is there any reason we should be staying up?”

Try as he might, Seoho can’t come up with one.

Geonhak slides into bed, and unlike yesterday, he doesn’t hesitate to wrap himself loosely around Seoho, curling around him like a shield, one palm resting right over Seoho’s heartbeat. It doesn’t make up for everything they’ve had taken from them, but it does dull the sting a little, makes the spaces left behind seem a little less hollow.

“Night, ‘Hak,” murmurs Seoho.

Geonhak hums and holds him tighter.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twt @theauthorish


End file.
